


we all fall when we lose too much

by justjellyjackal



Series: boy wonder more like boy gets whumpier [1]
Category: DCU (Comics), Titans (TV 2018)
Genre: Dick Grayson Whump, Dick Grayson is Nightwing, Dick is a Good Older Brother, Gen, Gunshot Wounds, Hurt/Comfort, Jason Todd is Robin, Kinda, Mainly Hurt, Titans, Whump, canon exists, collapse, concussion, dick grayson hurt, joker gas, shot
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-30
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:08:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27791278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justjellyjackal/pseuds/justjellyjackal
Summary: Dick and the Titans are actually doing okay, for once.The former Boy Wonder is headed to a gala with Bruce, Jason's coming too, and crime fighting's going fine... until the Joker, a speech, and a hidden wound get in the way of a fun night.There are/will be copious amounts of whump in this fic :)
Relationships: Dick Grayson & Jason Todd
Series: boy wonder more like boy gets whumpier [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2033233
Comments: 14
Kudos: 72





	1. let’s save the pitiful children *oHHHhhh*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this fic was going to be called ‘performance issues’ bc spoiler alert (altho if you read the tags you would know), dick is going to collapse at some point and… and… hahaha guys i’m funny hehe read into it a *tiny* bit  
> but anyways, bc this fic is for my sis, she got to put her foot down on my creative genius and ask to call it something else. unfortunate for the rest of you  
> there's a part in here where they talk about how to break into a bank vault and i did zero (0) research so i mean you can try to break in with that method but ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ idk if it'll work bro  
> also yup there will be dick whump and a bit of jason and hehehe just wait and see my darlings
> 
> chapter title from be more chill

Dick Grayson was tired, but at least it was Thursday. Not that crime took off on weekends, but he was actually going to get to take off this weekend.

Well, sort of.

Like, a bit.

A bit more than usual, at least.

Tomorrow, he was flying up to Gotham with Jason; the two were attending the “Save the Orphanage” gala with Bruce. And though Dick had bemoaned galas in his youth, wishing instead for nights of fighting crime, not fighting off old ladies who just loved to ogle over Bruce’s adorable ward, he secretly enjoyed the functions. Bruce had rubbed off on Dick in more ways than one; in addition to his penchant for vigilante work and pushing himself too hard, he had also gained the ability of smooth-talking, having a good time anywhere he went, and being effortlessly good-looking (actually, no. That one was all Dick). He had a smiling, suave facade, sure, but underneath it an interior that was just as filled with genuine, shit-eating grins as on the outside. Bruce had raised a mini-me without knowing it, his happy-go-lucky playboy charade leaking into Dick’s real personality. 

Dick had fought with Bruce over the years for the ways he had been raised (who thought training a literal  _ child  _ to be a vigilante to help him deal with his grief was a good idea, exactly? Therapists had been a thing long before Dick needed one... _ ) _ , but the two were more civil now, almost back to normal. Well, if there was anything normal about their relationship. But it was healing, and although it was slow going, it was almost there-

“Man, they’re almost through,” Jason’s voice cut through Dick’s thoughts. Ah, yes, that’s right. Dick, Jason, and Conner were sitting on the rooftop of the San Fran State Bank, watching the security feeds inside, being fed to them by Gar back at the Tower. Dick shook his head, clearing it of thoughts of Bruce and his gala-filled days. These criminals, he remembered, they were watching because the Titans wanted the police to get them on bigger charges than just breaking and entering - attempted robbery wasn’t as long of a sentence as actual robbery, and the team knew they could take them afterwards. 

“Why are they drilling that hole?” Conner asked, the boy ever-inquisitive.

Jason turned to him. “See, bud, money is behind that big, round door. In order to get to the money, they need to open the door. But since they’re bad guys, they don’t have the keys. But they still need a way to get in, and so they’re drilling the hole so that… uh, so that…” He looked at Dick, helpless.

“So that the locks will disengage, and the door will swing open for them all by itself, without keys,” Dick finished. Jason mouthed a silent thank you, and Dick nodded. For a second, he thought it odd that Jason hadn’t known why the thieves were drilling into the vault, but then he remembered that Jason’s crime fighting experience was mostly from what happened in Gotham, where villains usually had a lot weirder ways of getting into vaults, if they were even doing something as menial as stealing money.

_ “They’re in!”  _ Gar’s voice buzzed over the comms. “ _ Feel free to head in any time now, guys!” _

“Alright, here’s what’s going to happen,” Dick began. “We’re all going to drop in together; Robin, you and I are going to stick to the periphery and keep the thieves in, making sure none of them get away. We’ll try to get them into the safe if we can. Otherwise, Superboy, your job is to get those whom we can’t. Once all the bad guys are in the safe together, you’re going to use your heat vision to melt the metal of the safe. That way, they will all be stuck in there together. It won’t matter that they’re surrounded by money, they won’t have any way to get it out.”

Jason sat for a second, processing, and then said, “What, you’re not going to warn me to not use excessive force? Do you finally trust me?”

Dick huffed a laugh. “If you can remember to ask me to ask you to be gentle, I think you can remember to do it on your own. Let’s head in. Although...” he paused, deliberating, before finally giving in to temptation, “...Robin, be careful, we don’t want any bodies.”

The white eyes of the domino masks hid Dick and Jason’s own from the world, but Dick smiled as they kicked in the windows and crashed onto the floor of the bank, knowing that Jason’s eyes were rolling as hard as they could at him.

“Well, what do we have here?” Dick shouted at the criminals, somersaulting past a table and to his feet at the door of the safe. “I thought bank heists were more of a Tuesday thing?”

“Nightwing,” Jason said through gritted teeth, “did you seriously just quote  _ Despicable Me _ to a bunch of thieves? In front of me? Where I could hear you? And I couldn’t get to a safe space to cringe in peace?”

Conner looked between the two of them. “I do not understand what is wrong. Isn’t it Thursday?”

“It’s kind of ironic, too, considering we were adopted by a rich guy who’s kinda a villain… I mean, “ _ vigilante, _ ” but who’s counting...”

Dick turned to Jason and smiled, his teeth flashing in the light of the criminals’ flashlights. “I can say whatever I want, Robin. You didn’t have to come-”

One of the criminals chose this time to speak up. “Well, it’s too bad for you guys that you came.”

Not one to be interrupted, Dick went back to facing the thief, saying, “Hey, buddy, I wasn’t done talking actually, so-” but upon seeing the gun that the woman held, he slowly backed up, putting his hands in front of him. “-so actually, say what you want, y’know, whatever feels good to say, just say it now! And how about you don’t shoot me, yeah?”

Next to him, Conner let out a low growl that sounded suspiciously like a resident super good boy back at the Tower. He took a step forward, already willing to shield the brothers behind him.

“Superboy, it’s fine, don’t worry,” Jason said from behind. “I’ve got this.”

The sound of two hammers cocking behind him set off an alarm in Dick’s head. Unwilling to take his eyes off the seven drawn guns in front of him, he merely said, “Uh, Robin, what… what are you going to do…?”

“This.”

And as suddenly as the guns in front of him had appeared, two bullets came from either side behind him, their BANGs reverberating through his head, their heat warming the back of it. A moment later, Dick realized he should probably get out of the way of the ensuing firefight, and dropped to the ground, rolling to the side and safety of the wall, dragging Conner with him. It was senseless, as the boy was more bulletproof than any kevlar vest, but it was just a reflex at this point.

Getting into a crouch on his side of the wall and drawing his escrima sticks, he yelled across the doorway to Jason, “YOU- WHERE. WHERE DID YOU-” 

A double bang answered his shouts, echoing through the dark bank together with the sounds of the guns on the inside of the safe.

“YOU HAVE. TWO. GUNS. WITH REAL BULLETS. HERE. WHY.” It was an order, demanding an answer, not a causal question, although it was answered as such.

“Oh, you know,” Jason nonchalantly leaned across the doorway, firing again, grinning as a scream sounded from his efforts, “I always try to come prepared to these things. Never bring escrima sticks to a gunfight, Wing. Don’t they teach you these things at vigilante school anymore?”

“I’m older than you,” Dick growled. He rose to a low crouch, firing several batarangs into the melee in front of him. A bullet whizzed past his arm in answer, narrowly avoiding shattering his forearm. He felt a lick of warmth, but the thick fabric of his suit kept it from inflicting any damage.

Wandering in front of the safe, and effectively blocking Dick from any more batarang shots as well as bullets, Conner stood, puzzled. “There’s a school for us?” he wondered aloud.

Leaning in front of the doorway to make sure he was heard, but still safely behind Conner, Dick said, “Robin, you and I are going to have a chat about this when we get back to the Tower.” An audible scoff was heard, a whine already beginning, but Dick powered through his unfortunate ‘parent’ speech. “Until then, please don’t-”

Dick’s breathing hitched, and he felt a bud of pain bloom as he was knocked back into a table, getting a two-for-one injury as his head also began to throb and his vision cut out for a moment.

“DI- NIGHTWING!” he heard, barely, like he was underwater. “Superboy, end this now!”

A something - a hand? - was on his side, searching for something, but finding only pain. Dick grunted in response to it, and the hand was quickly removed. But then back again, searching, searching, searching...

“Sorry, Wing,” a near breath threaded its way into his head. “Where does it hurt? There’s so much blood...”

As if it was an instinctive response, Dick found himself gritting out, ““’Tis but a scratch.””

Jason’s laugh was cut off by a small grunt of pain, but Dick barely noticed its occurrence, just happy to make the younger Robin laugh. 

“ _ Monty Python,” _ he said. “Good one, Wing.” 

“Always for you, kid.” Jason’s hand touched his head, and he hissed, the smile disappearing from his face. White flashed in Dick’s vision as he momentarily jerked from the sharp pain.

“Ooh, ah, sorry… it doesn’t look too bad, but we’ll check it out when we get back to the Tower. Can you… can you sit up?”

Dick slowly blinked, shaking his head to clear it (bad idea, he found out, as his head felt worse). “Yup, I can get up, just… just a sec.”

He sat up and leaned his head against the leg of the table he had just hit. Grimacing, he touched his side. How had anything even pierced his suit? It was supposed to be tougher than kevlar, though the criminals had been quite close to him. He looked at his hand to try and find blood, but his vision was still a bit blurry, so he lied a bit, saying, “See, just… it’s just a graze, nothing more than a lot of blood.” He smiled, hoping to hide the pain.

Helping him stand, Jason rolled his eyes, offering a shoulder to the wounded man. “Dickie-bird, you need to work on your acting skills. We’re  _ definitely _ taking you to the medbay when we get home.” 

This time, the smile that broke across Dick’s face was real. He knew that  _ he _ thought of the Tower as home; or really, any place his friends were - that was home for him. But to know that Jason thought of it like that too? Dick reached over to ruffle the kid’s hair. “Yeah, we can check it out at home. Now, let’s wrap up these bad guys.”

A voice floated over from within the safe - “Oh, you mean  _ these _ bad guys?”

Jason and Dick, the latter slightly supported by the former, walked over to the vault’s entrance. Peeking inside, it was apparent that Conner really could handle himself: all the thieves were sitting in a circle, tied up with their own bags, which had been meant for the money they wanted to steal.

Dick raised one eyebrow, saying, “Nice job, Superboy.” It was actually a pretty creative solution; Dick was suitably impressed. He pushed off of Jason, taking a few shaky steps to make sure he could actually walk, before taking a lap around the criminals, checking to see if they were all secured.

Jason did the same thing, walking in the opposite direction. Conner looked on with glee, happy to have done something right. It also appeared that he had gotten all of the valuables into a pile on the other side of the room. Dick saw Jason’s eyes stray to the pile, the gleam in them obviously reminiscing his younger days of thievery. Dick grunted once, and Jason’s eyes snapped back to the thieves in front of him. He saw a bit of color rush to the boy’s cheeks, but Dick knew Jason was suitably reminded of his current job, no matter the temptations of the old one.

Upon finishing his assessment, Dick nodded in Conner’s direction. “You did good, kid.” 

God, he sounded just like Bruce when he said things like that. 

“You sound just like Bruce when you say things like that,” Jason whispered to Dick from right behind, startling him.

“Hey,” he turned, “no names in the field.”

Jason put his hands up in defense. “I’m just saying, old man, you sound like ours. It’s fine, though. Just the good parts.”

“I’m not that old,” he muttered, but smiled a bit all the same. 

“I have put in a call,” said Conner, bringing the two brothers back to reality. “I told the police we had dealt with the situation, but there is still pick-up to be done. And that we will send the tapes over later. Do we still need to melt the door of the safe shut?”

He looked almost excited at the prospect, making Dick was almost sad to let the boy down, saying, “Nah, they look good and taken care of just like this.” He took an experimental swing with his arm, hoping his side wouldn’t rip open. “The bags were a good idea, Superboy, and they don’t need any more restraints.”

“Alright, then let’s fuckin’ GO!” Jason shouted, already snapping a grappling hook to the next building over. He jumped out, whooping with glee, beginning the swing back to the tower.

Dick watched his little brother, swallowing nervously; swinging an arm around was one thing, but swinging above rooftops? He walked over to the window, hopping up with the ease of someone who had done it for over half his life; which he had. He looked over the edge, teetering at the expanse before him.

“Superboy, can you spot me for a sec?” 

“Of course, Nightwing,” the clone responded, moving to stand next to the man on the sill. 

The former Robin rolled his shoulders back before shooting a line, and then jumped. A small gasp of pain escaped him, but each line he shot after the first yielded no more pain. 

“Alright, Superboy, you can come fly with us now!”

Conner shot out of the bank, a smile on his face. Dick knew the boy’s favorite part of the missions was the journeys they took to get places. Dick, too, knew the pleasures of flying through the air; or, in his case,  _ seemingly  _ flying through the air. The Flying Graysons didn’t have superpowers like Conner and his dad, but anyone who went to the circus would have said otherwise. 

With fond memories of his family flying through his head, Dick added a little flip in between his next grappling-line change.

Jason apparently spotted it, yelling, “Oh, so  _ that’s _ how it’s gonna be!” He dropped back a bit, and then swung right in front of Dick.

Dick let go of his line so as to not hit Jason, exclaiming, “What the fuck, kid?” before shooting another, arcing high, and doing another flip. 

“Come on, ’Wing. You say you’re not an old man? Prove it.” And just like that, the game was on, Jason swinging in front of Dick every chance he could, and Dick dropping at the last second to avoid him, adding increasingly more acrobatic moves in between. Conner flew in and out of the lines, laughing at the antics of the brothers. Dick was reminded of a time when he was younger. 

After the Flying Graysons, when he was with Bruce. It was one of their first nights out together as Batman and Robin. They had just captured one of Two-Face’s goons, and successfully gotten the information they needed without resorting to the more… challenging aspects of information-getting. He and Bruce had been grappling back to the manor when he had done it; Dick flipped off a line, jumped onto Bruce’s back, and flipped off again with another hook attached somewhere else. Bruce’s face had lit up, a rarity to see through the Batman cowl, and Dick had noticed. Dick had always been able to make Bruce smile… and so he did it again, and again, and again, throwing in even more complicated gymnastics, until Bruce finally joined in too, with a small front flip here, a 360 twirl there. Robin’s laughter had bounced off the buildings, and Dick still had a framed photo that some civilian had taken with a flip phone. The picture was as grainy as one would expect from that crappy of a phone, but he could clearly pick out Bruce’s smile, as well as his own. 

Thinking of it, Dick smiled even more broadly, letting out a whoop of joy. “Almost home, Jay-bird!”

Jason’s line swung a bit too close as he came to whack Dick on the arm. “Hey, no names in costume, remember?”

Dick sighed as he completed a triple back flip. “‘Jay-bird’ isn’t a name, it’s a nickname.”

“Just like ‘Dick’ isn’t a name, it’s an insult!”

A small scoff of shock came from Superboy’s comm. “I thought ‘dick’ was an appendage on the-”

“Y’know what, boys, we’re done with this conversation,” Dick quickly broke in. “Oh, and would you look at that, we’re at the tower.”

Dick flipped onto the balcony of the tower, the two others quickly following behind him in a one-two-three sort of fashion, as if to the beat of a song. Dick strolled over to the door, holding it wide open to the others with a bow. Jason took it with stride, twirling into the tower with a flourish and a smile. Conner, on the other hand, just walked into the tower. 

“Someone’s in a good mood,” Rachel called from the couch, sitting up a bit to watch Dick and the others come in. He settled down next to her, watching his brother through half-lidded eyes.

Jason did a slow cartwheel into the kitchen (Dick smiled lazily at that), landing in front of the fridge. “Hell  _ yeah _ we’re in a good mood!” He pulled a jug of orange juice out and set it on the counter. “We stopped the bad guys,” out came blueberry mini-wheats, “Conner did some cool stuff,” a measuring cup was grabbed to serve as a bowl, “and we did flips on the way home!” the mini-wheats were poured in, followed by the juice. “Oh, and Dick got shot and hit his head haha.” 

Dick heard an abrupt stop to Jason’s clatter in the kitchen. “DICK what the FUCK how do you just-”

An arm grabbed Dick’s own and he was hauled up from his spot on the couch. “Jason,” he whined, not quite paying attention (was that his concussion acting up? it was certainly possible), “I’m fine, I told you I was fine, I swung all the way home and never faltered-”

“I’m not Jason,” a quiet voice broke through his own. 

Dick blinked, and suddenly realized it was Conner holding him up, not his little brother. He blinked again and he was being led down a hallway; well, led was a strong word, it was maybe more akin to being carried or even heavily supported as he stumbled along. Another blink and he was on a bed in the infirmary, a light being shined into his eyes.

“Eyes are blown wide… he’s not even focusing on what we’re saying, let alone the light…” 

He felt a small hand caress his cheek. A white-blonde lock of hair passed through his vision, and deep brown eyes met his own.

“Dawn,” he breathed.

“Ah, he’s back,” she smiled. He gave her one in return, or at least… he thought he did, but it must have been some other sort of expression because Dawn looked at him in confusion as he did it.

“You’re bleeding,” she said.

He wasn’t… oh yeah, he was. The- the whack he took to the head. Dick’s eyes closed a bit and he moaned softly as she stroked the knob.

Another voice broke into Dick’s mind, growling, “Hey. Watch it, Boy Wonder. It’s only okay when I do that.”

“Hank,” Dawn softly chided, “You know he doesn’t mean it like that.”

A weight fell next to Dick, and a hand onto his shoulder, rubbing it. “Yeah, yeah, I know. Where’s Rachel?”

“Jason’s getting her right now.” 

A minute or a month passed and Rachel’s blue eyes met Dick’s own. 

“Oh, Dick…” 

A tendril of her power flowed through him like a stream of cool water, gently nudging his head all over before traveling down to his side, finding the bullet wound there.

Rachel gasped. “Dick, this is… this is deep. And your concussion is… it’s intense. I don’t know if- I mean, I just had to take care of Hank and I’m a little low so I- I can only heal one…”

“Do his head,” came Dawn’s soft voice. Dick agreed with her, his head felt foggy and he still didn’t quite know what was going on. Her eyes swirled in front of him, the red stone in her forehead swirling with them, making patterns Dick had once seen in a kaleidoscope. Dick’s eyes began to close as the patterns overwhelmed his vision and the pain became too much for him.

“Do it now, Rachel. We can just stitch up his side.”

A hand was on his back, another on his front, guiding him to lie back onto the bed. 

“Dick. Let go.”

Dick didn’t want to let go, though, there was something… something important…

“Dick, you need to- I can’t heal you like this, it’s- your concussion is so-”

A memory of Jason flinching passed through Dick’s mind-

Why was that-

What did the flinch mean-

A little stutter step-

Something pricked his neck and he felt a cool seep through his veins, just like Rachel’s magic had felt.

Oh.

Oh, it was drugs.

Drugs and-  _ and _ Rachel’s power, this was great-

Wait but “Jason- ”

“ _ DICK. STOP.” _

Something rushed to a certain part of Dick’s mind and suddenly, he knew no more, relaxing and falling into the bed, finally lying still.

__________________________________________________

Dick awoke in the same way he fell unconscious: suddenly, violently, and with no warning, Jason’s name on his lips.

The boy was somehow instantly at his side, and Dick realized his little brother must have been waiting at his side; the scrape of a chair also alerted him to this fact. 

“You were shot.”

Jason had the gall to look the tiniest bit guilty. “Dick, I-”

“We were swinging around the city. It’s been-” he looked at the clock- “six hours-” he did a double take- “holy shit I’ve been out for six hours- oh God, nevermind, get back in here, it’s been six hours since  _ I _ was out, well… ish… anyways, I bet you haven’t even done anything to take care of that.”

The boy’s guilt turned a bit defensive. “I mean I wasn’t… I wasn’t  _ bleeding out _ or anything dramatic like that, not like you-”

“I wasn’t  _ bleeding out _ either-”

“You were nonresponsive! You didn’t know what was going on and your eyes were going everywhere and you- whatever. I’m just fine, haha, just…” 

The sway while saying “just fine” was too much for Dick. “Jason. Sit down here.” Dick patted the bed beside him, hoping Jason would do what he was told for once; to Dick’s surprise, he obeyed without question.

“I’m okayyyyy,” he slurred a bit, the adrenaline finally fading off. Dick assumed that the realization that he was fine was what set him over the edge, enabling his wound to finally come to a head and take priority in his body.

The Boy Wonder stood from the bed, gently pushing his brother down in his stead. “Here, let me take care of that for you.” Dick’s hands were soft on Jason’s arm, gently cleaning the wound, stitching it, and wrapping his bicep, a complete difference from just a few hours before when his hands had been used to fight criminals. 

Dick knew it was the drugs talking when Jason’s voice came out small, saying, “Dickie? Do I still get to go to the gala tomorrow?”

He smiled, sitting down next to him. “Actually, it’s today, but… well, anyways, I thought you didn’t like the galas. And, y’know, this would be a perfect excuse not to go.”

The two sat together on the medical bed for a while, and Dick thought Jason had fallen asleep until he said, “No, I kinda like them, actually. I like seeing Bruce act like a fool and you act like the flitting fairy you are and the alcohol’s pretty good, too. And the desserts, too.” 

Dick smirked, “Well, then. Of course you can go. You just… y’know, you just say… you… broke… your arm.”

“I didn’t break my arm.”

Dick looked at him. 

“oH.”

Dick rolled his eyes. “Yeah. Well, we’ll just put a sling over your arm. It should probably have one anyway, and plus it is a gala to get money for orphans, and you  _ are _ an orphan, and you’ll look even more pathetic…”

Jason lightly slapped his arm. “What’s the full excuse, though? Like, what did I break it doing?”

“Ha, that’s up to you, little bro. Bruce usually just says “shaving accident,” but, I mean… well it’s funny as fuck for Bruce to say it and then just take a shot, but for you… well, you don’t even have peach fuzz.”

Jason’s mouth dropped open as he whacked Dick with a little more force, Dick laughing and dancing out of the way of a second swipe. 

“Get some sleep, Jay-bird.”

“Only if you do too, Dickie-bird.”

Dick didn’t make a promise he wouldn’t keep, but he still laughed in agreeance as he turned off the lights on the newest Robin. 

He walked slowly back to his room, his arm brushing his side in remembrance of the GSW still chilling there, waiting to be forgotten. He had been half-hoping (fully-hoping, actually) that Rachel had somehow managed to fix his wound, but oh well… he’d just have to do it himself. He got into his room uninterrupted by anyone else, probably because it was already seven in the morning; everyone was still sleeping. It was a good thing Dick had taken the whole day off, and their flight wasn’t until four in the afternoon- their flight. 

Dick mentally slapped himself. He still had to go to the gala. With a- he poked it and grimaced- definitely  _ not _ a graze on his side. Dick was dumb, not stupid, he knew he needed to stitch it up and probably put on a bandage on it to keep the… blood in… or something. Swelling down? Whatever. He needed a bit more rest oop. Haha. Stitch stitch stitch. Thread in, out, cut. Thread in, out, cut. Good enough. Bandage. Oxy? Maybe just melatonin. Yeah, melatonin. 

Dick fell face first onto his bed, hoping he’d pass out as fast as possible.

It was gonna be a longggg day. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in writing this fic i have determined i have no clue how to spell ‘thief.’ apparently it is with an ‘ie’ and not an ‘ei’ which i do not like  
> also blueberry mini-wheats with orange juice actually slaps if you have never had it
> 
> comments and kudos are always appreciated, my dudes :)


	2. time's running out, kid

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dick goes home and they prep for the gala :)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> guys it's short i know it's short but i wanted to give y'all something  
> chapter title from the bottom line (reprise)

Dick and his brother stepped off the plane to the thunderous applause of pigeon wings and probably a dozen or two paparazzi camera flashes.

“Mr. Grayson!”

“Mr. Gray-”

“Mr. Todd!”

“Dick!”

“Jason Todd!”

“It’s the Golden Boy of Gotham, back from the Golden State-”

“ _ Mr. Grayson!” _

“Jay, what’s up-”

“Masters Dick, Jason,” a calm voice broke through the cacophony, “I will take you back to the manor now.”

“Aw, bet! Shotgun!” Jason yelled, sliding over the hood of the car to claim his seat. 

Dick hugged the man in greeting. “Thanks for the pick-up, Alfie. I missed you over there.”

“And I, you, Master Dick.” A small smile crinkled Alfred’s calm facade. He opened the door for his almost-grandson with a flourish, and Dick slid in with the ease of a man who had done it countless times before.

The car ride back was as uneventful as the plane ride there; which is to say, Jason complained loudly about his injury while gesturing wildly with his sling (which he claimed he didn’t need, although his every grimace said otherwise), Dick tried to ignore the definitely not constant pain he was in through deep breathing exercises and minimal talking, and Bruce texted exactly one message:  _ Glad to have you home. _

The moment Dick walked through the door, he knew he’d been made. Bruce raised one eyebrow, one  _ singular _ eyebrow, and Dick knew that all his straight backed smiles had been for nothing; Alfred must have subtly alerted Bruce to his maladies, it’s possible he knew all along, he knew he should’ve made a better effort to talk more in the car, maybe he had-

Bruce’s finger, beckoning, interrupted Dick’s thoughts and directed him towards the Batcave. He followed his not-father inside, ready for his imminent demise. 

________

“So,” Bruce began. He noticed his oldest seemed to be sweating a bit. He'd have to ask Alfred about that, see if he'd noticed anything on the ride over. He could always grill Jason about any remaining injuries Dick might have, too; the boy was always looking to please, and it was time Bruce learned if his loyalties had switched to his brother instead of him. 

“Joker has been quiet lately,” he continued, bringing up a large map of Gotham on the Bat-computer. “We think he's planning something, possibly this week or the next. It's gala season, so anything is possible with him.” He pulled up several more windows of information, waiting for Dick to make some joke about galas or the Joker or- or  _ something _ . He didn’t, so Bruce went on with his debrief. “Bane is back, but we know where he is, so we’re going to hit him tomorrow night. We know he has plans to wreak havoc this Wednesday at the Arkham parole meeting, but stopping him will, of course, put an end to that. I’ll let you know about the plan tomorrow.”

He turned around and Dick blinked at him from his vantage point behind the desk’s chair, confusion plain in his features until he schooled them into a slightly more normal expression. “You… so, that's it?”

Bruce scoffed. “‘ _ That’s it?’  _ Dick, I'm asking you to come patrolling with me and telling you what is currently what in Gotham, and that's what you say to me?”

Dick was abashed for a second, and then- “Jason’s not coming?”

Bruce gave him a Bat-glare before Dick’s mind caught up to the present. 

“Oh, he's… his arm… right, sorry.” He muttered something else under his breath which sounded suspiciously like “ _ you had me patrol through worse,”  _ but Bruce decided to let it slide this one time. He knew he had been a bit hard on Dick when he was younger, but he had learned from his past… mistakes… and was admittedly soft(er) on his youngest. 

He sat down heavily on the console of the desk. “So I'm thinking you could take the sector centered around Wayne Enterprises later tonight, after the gala, and I’ll do the train patrol.”

Dick crossed his arms, leaning on a table near him, eyes narrowing. “You're telling me that you want to take the train patrol? With all its jumps and flips and shakiness?”

“Well, I just figured that for your first night back-”

“You think I can't handle it?” Dick’s arms uncrossed as he pushed off the table. His wince didn't go quite unnoticed by Bruce, but it was a tad overshadowed by his obscenely dramatic hand gestures. “God, Bruce, this is exactly why I left.” A hand ran through his hair, then scrubbed his face. “You don't trust me to do stuff,” one finger counted off, “you control me,” oh, that was a very blatant middle finger being counted now, “you make me into a person I don't want to be-”

Bruce reached out a placating hand. “Dick, they changed the routes since you left.” An “o” of recognition met him. “I just- I didn't want you to get screwed over by it.”

Bruce sighed inwardly. He knew Dick was used to being a leader of his own team, so it might be a moment or two before he trusted him to lead him again, but perhaps Bruce could do something to make it more of a partnership, too. 

“In fact,” he offered, “I was going to have you run point on the Bane operation tomorrow, but, again, for your first night, I figured something a little easier and… throwback-ish… might be better.”

The “o” that Dick’s mouth had formed quirked into a smirk. “Did you just say “throwback-ish” as though it's a real word? God, what type of slang has Jason been malignantly filling your head with?” 

He came over to stand by Bruce, and Bruce let a thread of a smile slip through. Dick had always been the tiniest bit vain, either from Bruce's own tendencies or the boy’s years in the circus, and giving him the Bane mission was both a trust exercise and something he knew his son could handle well and be proud of. 

Bruce’s arm snaked around Dick’s shoulders, and suddenly Dick was ten again, leaning into Bruce’s touch and embrace without even knowing it. The two talked for a bit like that in front of the giant screen before Dick pulled away, claiming some excuse about needing to go unpack. Bruce allowed it, watching his son leave before turning back to the screen in front of him. 

He was glad Dick was back, but… well, he had missed Dick, don’t get him wrong, but something seemed off with him. Maybe it was a hidden injury; Dick was fond of those. Or maybe his boy was just as nervous to be working with him as he was. Or maybe it was trouble with his love life…?

Bruce shuddered unconsciously; the thought of dealing with any of those options was not something he wanted to entertain. He recalled perspiration beading on Dick’s neck, his eyes closing as he leaned on the back of a chair, his confusion when Bruce only talked about the mission with him. 

He raised a hand to his ear to activate his comm to tell Alfred to keep an eye on Dick, but then Bruce did something he’d never done before: he dropped his arm and shrugged. Maybe it was foolish, but he had to start trusting the boy… the  _ man _ ... at some point. If Dick wasn’t okay to go out, he would have to learn to be honest with Bruce, or suffer the consequences. And hopefully… hopefully, this would go towards repairing their relationship the tiniest bit. 

_________________________

Dick fell back on his bed with a sigh of relief. He had somehow made it through an interrogation without being interrogated, which probably meant that he actually  _ had  _ been and just didn’t know it. Whatever. He was in the clear… for now.

Maybe he could actually rest a bit right now. Maybe he could just take a quick, short, tiny nap-

“Dickie-bird!” A loud voice jumped onto his bed beside him, throwing him into the air a bit. 

Dick smiled, turning to the side of his bed. “Jason, I’m gone for, what, twenty minutes, and you already miss me?”

Jason sat up in confusion. “Dick, it’s been, like, an hour.”

Dick’s mouth fell open yet again. So maybe he  _ had  _ napped. “Right… right, yep, I knew that. Just a- just a hyperbolic joke.”

Jason didn’t even register Dick’s voice, he was too busy trying to hide his excitement for the gala. “I suppose we should start getting ready now,” he sighed hugely. He threw open the doors to Dick’s still full walk-in closet with as much drama as he could muster; the boy’s days in middle and high school theatre were still prevalent in his every movement. 

“Look at  _ this _ thing, what is it?” Jason threw out a blue, black, and gold sparkly jumpsuit that Dick, even in a slightly injured haze, managed to snatch out of the air and hide before Jason could get a better look at it. 

“It’s nothing, nothing at all,” he said with the air of someone who had everything to hide.

Jason smirked. “I’ll let that one go, I guess, as long as you tell me what age you were when you wore-” he flourished a green, red, and gold sparkly leotard- “ _ this _ lovely thing.”

Dick sat up with a sad smile. “I was eight.”

Jason’s smirk fell. “Oh, I… sorry, I- I thought this was your Robin- that you wore this as Robin…”

Dick took pity on the boy, dragging him down to sit on the bed with him to stop his floundering. “It’s okay, Jason.  _ All _ the past suits are downstairs, not just Batman’s. This one… this one is my own.”

Jason, uncomfortable with Dick’s smile missing, tried to replace it. “And the blue thing?” He grabbed it from under the pillow where Dick had attempted to hide it and waved it under his nose. “What is this?”

Dick rolled his eyes. “A mistake,” he said with a laugh, snatching it right back. “It was a costume, a- a joke, really, that I don’t really want to go into right now.”

“Discowing… a nice choice, Master Dick, but perhaps not the right type of suit you should wear to the gala this evening.” As quickly as he breezed into the conversation Alfred breezed out, sowing chaos in his wake to a cacophony of Jason yelling “DISCOWING?” from the top of his lungs.

_________________________________

Somehow the two brothers managed to make it to the entranceway of the manor by 9:30, their required time to be ready. Bruce, of course, was fashionably five minutes late, so by the time they got in the retrofitted Rolls-Royce and were leaving, it was 9:40pm, just as Alfred had predicted and prepped for. 

Jason sprawled in the back seat, tossing a batarang in the air with one hand and catching it with the same one, completely oblivious to the need for correct posture when wearing a seatbelt. 

“And so then-” he continued with his story, Dick rolling his eyes at what Bruce assumed might be the third re-telling he’d heard. As he smiled at his son, Bruce began debating if Jason was still in pain or just milking the injury.

Jason’s actions were large and melodramatic, but then, they usually were; if anything, a deviance from that would mark a still-healing injury. His eyes were bright, but Bruce thought it was excitement, not pain, that made them so. Granted, it could be intense painkillers, but Jason knew how to handle himself around, well, drugs. Jason was fine. He was okay, he was… he was safe with Dick. He was recovering, and he would be able to bounce back from this. 

Bruce took a deep, yet subtle, breath, in and out. Jason was fine. His son was okay, and Bruce could enjoy this gala with his family and the high society of Gotham; well, as much as one could enjoy a gala when the bulk of the population who attended was drugged or drunk or just plain not good company.

Bruce’s thoughts were interrupted with a hard bump of the car. Jason missed catching his batarang, it almost punctured his injured arm, and he slung forward in his seat and almost fell off.

“Alfred! The fuck was that?”

“Language, Master Jason. And it was a… pot-hole. Of sorts.”

“Maybe you should actually sit in your seat correctly,” Dick smirked. “Then, you wouldn’t have these issues.”

A whine rose from the back seat. “I could have been  _ grievously  _ injured. I could have  _ died. _ I could have-”

“You could have sat up,” Bruce muttered, to a bark of laughter from Dick. Good to know who was on who's side in this scenario.

“B, where are we even going?” Dick asked, looking to change the conversation to limit the amount of fighting. He was always a peacemaker, that one. 

“New hotel,” he replied. “A Hilton, I think.”

Dick smirked. “You own this one, too?”

Bruce smiled. “Not yet, son. Not yet.”

Bruce didn't miss the genuine smile that spread across Dick’s face at the mention of him being his ‘son.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments and kudos please hehe


End file.
